My feet drag down the steps and my palm slides along the wooden rail, feeling the knicks and grooves from years of wear. My vision hazes and I mentally go back to the river, to the screams and the crunch of metal, the moaning echo of the sedan losing the battle against the water rushing in, taking the car under. The waking nightmare is jarred to an end with the slam of a door below, and I scramble to my feet and check to make sure my eyes aren’t watering.
My palm leaves my face and my eyes open in time to meet his eyes staring up at me from the bottom of the steps. The familiar vision stabs at my chest. Theo Rothschild’s eyes look just like his twin sister’s did, a steely gray-blue that could mirror the sky or water, only the joy I always found in hers is replaced with resentment and pain.
“Change your mind and decide to transfer out?” Theo drops his hands in the pockets of his dress pants and leans against the wall of the stairwell, which suddenly feels smaller.
I match his stare and ignore the thunder in my chest threatening to knock me off my feet.
“No.”
I try to hold my mouth in the same straight line his is showing. Theo Rothschild hates me. Yet I have been in love with him since I arrived at Welles five years ago. We rarely spoke to one another before that night, our worlds two entirely different realms. Anika was the bridge. It’s not why I became her friend, but he would never believe that. And now she’s gone. Because I couldn’t save her.
Theo’s mouth ticks up on one side and his eyes blink slowly as he looks down to his palm, pulling a small tin of mints from his pocket. He stands up straight, leaving the wall’s support, and pulls a mint out and places it in his mouth. He begins to flip the lid closed with his thumb but pauses with a grin. He holds the mint between his teeth and for some reason, it looks threatening. He lets the small metal lid fall open again and holds the tin out toward me, glancing up with one arched brow.
My eyes move to the offering then back up to his waiting expression. This feels like a test.
“No, thank you,” I say, just wanting to move past him and out the door so I can drown my pain without his observation and opinion. He doesn’t move immediately, instead holding the tin out for a few long seconds as his teeth crunch down on the mint in his mouth and his stare holds me captive.
“My apologies. Didn’t mean to interrupt . . . whatever it is you do here.” He flips the tin closed and drops it in his pocket along with his hand. His head tilted to one side, gravity pulls his hair across his forehead, ghosting his eyes. Hostility radiates from him despite the cool demeanor he is working so hard to perfect.
I’m sorry! She was my favorite person. I wanted to be just like her. Please forgive me. Talk to me! We could help each other. I hurt, just like you hurt. Please!
I can no longer take the heat of his presence, and rather than answer, or worse, cry, I dash past him and push out the main door to head out onto the lawn and toward the aquatic center, where I plan on hiding out in the dark locker room until I’m forced to get back to this life.
Chapter2
Theo Rothschild
By the time I push open the stairwell door, all I can see of Lily is her long brown hair swaying against her back and the flash of white from her knee-high socks.
I never noticed her before Anika introduced us. Maybe we’ve had a class together but I’m not sure. It was probably my fault—my lack of awareness, as Anika used to say—that Lily and I never spoke before the party down at the abandoned barn. My sister had to drag her to it. And even then, it took Lily two hours to finally come sit out by the bonfire with me.
She was shy. I’m . . .definitely not.A few beers in, I figured I’d do my sister a favor and talk to the girl for a while. If getting to know me was that big of a deal to her, I didn’t want to let her down and make her think I was a total dick.
Then the strangest thing happened. Once we started talking, we couldn’t stop. I sobered up during the time because I had no interest in leaving our conversation to get more to drink. Lily didn’t drink at all. I probably would have made fun of that if my sister hadn’t warned me to be gentle and openminded. Actually,politewas the word she used. Because of Anika, I had one of the best nights of my life. Lily and I talked music, college, travel dreams, childhood memories—at least the good ones. There were things she was guarded about, that I could sense were off the table, which I understood. I’ve got shit of my own. But the more hours that ticked by, the more I relaxed and let my mind embrace the idea that maybe, someday—someday soon—I’d share some of that baggage with Lily in hopes she would share hers back.
She had light brown eyes that played tricks on me all night, teasing me with the bits of green and gold. Her hair was pulled into ponytails on either side of her head, and the strands that didn’t fit constantly tickled her face. Her mouth was wide, and when she smiled it lit her up with this unmistakable energy. I liked the way she kept pulling her sweatshirt sleeves down over her hands to keep them warm, and the way her ankles showed under her rolled-up jeans and sockless shoes. She was everything my sister talked her up to be. She was also so much more.
Then they got in that fucking car.
Lily was supposed to be my sister’s friend. Instead, she was one more person who let Anika down. I let her down, too, but not that I didn’t try. Anika never wanted to talk to me the way I wished she would have. Maybe I should have pushed harder. Maybe then I wouldn’t wonder if it was really an accident when she veered off that bridge last spring or if she drove through the barricades on purpose. She shouldn’t have been behind the wheel. That’s one detail I know for sure. Everyone fucking knows thanks to a very public medical history report and the damn gossipy local press. The story was so salacious, Boston picked it up. Scandals like underage drinking at boarding school parties go viral. Add in a stolen car hijacked by a seventeen-year-old girl with a serious seizure disorder and you have the perfect formula for one of those four-part miniseries.
I wonder if Lily ever thought about not coming back. I guess it’s easier to show up at a place that thinks you’re a hero. She probably doesn’t get the same empty glares I get, the frozen O-shaped mouths that don’t know what to say to console me. I’ve been here for less than twenty-four hours and already the murmurs have picked up steam.
His sister just died. How can he come back to this place?
I heard they have a terrible home life. I wonder if they really got along or if it was just pretend?
Why didn’t he save her? Where was he when she got in that car? I didn’t know she was so sick! He never should have left her alone.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut as I back into the stairwell and let the door slam closed, the echo of the metal falling into place loud enough to shake the voices from my head. If I’m going to survive this place—this year—it must be business as usual.
I’ll be lucky if a single company invites me for an internship interview this year. It’s the only reason I came back to this place. A Welles recommendation gets me closer to going to college somewhere far away from my mother and her never-ending toxic relationship with my stepfather. It’s hard to not think of Neil asourstepfather. That’s what he was for so long. Anika and I uttered that word with every bit of disdain we could, the kind reserved for the evil stepmothers in fairytales. Neil put them to shame every time he was in our house. The man emanates a certain air of evil. I don’t know what he did to Anika exactly. As her brother, I probably should have insisted on knowing. Maybe I didn’t push for details to protect myself—or maybe I did it to keep Anika innocent. Whatever it was that happened over our last Christmas break at home, it was enough for our mom to finally kick him out of the house.
All I need is one good year. Football will help. Not because we’re good but because extracurriculars count for more when classes are so rigorous. I only need to convince the coach I’m ready to play.
I give my shoulders one final roll and blow out the toxic anger that continually simmers in my chest, drawing in clean air that I hope makes me seem convincing for the next few minutes.
Coach Wallace’s family lives at Hayden Hall as the dorm parents. Of course, his family’s quarters are more like a first-floor penthouse than the tight dorm rooms we all live in. It’s one of the ways Welles can get such amazing professors and coaches. His family lives here rent free, and his daughters will get a Welles education for nearly nothing.